


only one Blight, and two of us

by madeoutoflight



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dalish Origin, Drabble, Gen, Original Character(s), Self-Insert, joining the wardens, this is honestly only interesting for me and my super twin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 20:18:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8461546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeoutoflight/pseuds/madeoutoflight
Summary: In which the Mahariel twins are put on a path that takes them away from their clan.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greekdemigod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greekdemigod/gifts).



> This is solely written for the amusement of myself and the lovely greekdemigod, who is my twin mentally if not in DNA. Short, quickly-drabbled Dalish origins as known to everyone, now with more shameless self-insert.

The first thing Kay sees when she opens her eyes is her sister’s face, forehead almost painfully etched with worry and her lower lip bitten to shreds. Her first instinct is to say something witty and smooth out Dezh’s features, but there’s dust in her throat and gravel between her teeth and all that comes out is a scratchy groan. Dezh immediately leans in to place a cool hand on her head.

“Don’t sit up too fast, you’ll fall over,” she whispers. “Thank the Creators you’re awake, though!”

“Wh… Urgh—” It takes a few seconds for Kay to find her voice. “What happened? I got knocked out?”

“Pretty thoroughly,” Dezh says, settling on the edge of Kay’s bed. They’re in their shared aravel—Kay notes the familiar herbal smell, the way the light filters in through the leaves they’ve put up as curtains, the faint creak of wood around them as the wind brushes against the sides of the landship.

“Do you remember anything?” Dezh asks carefully.

Kay frowns, straining to think back. The first image that pops up is undoubtedly the last thing she saw before she fainted—ripples on the surface of a mirror, a hand in leather gloves touching the glass. She closes her eyes to focus, and the whole thing comes rushing back.

“I was with Tamlen,” she croaks. “We ran into a couple of shems in the forest and they told us about a cave… We thought they were lying, but then we found it—”

She raises her eyes to look at her sister, trying to convey some of the sudden fear that’s gripped her. Dezh’s face is strangely calm. In fact, she gives a little nod as if Kay’s simply confirming what she already knew. When she meets Kay’s eyes, she bites her lower lip again.

“You were found outside a cave. By a shem. He brought you here and told us…”

“A _shem_?”

“Not just any shem,” Dezh hurries to say. “A Grey Warden.”

That shuts Kay up for a bit. They may be Dalish, but the legends of the Grey Wardens are told around their campfires, too. Brave men and women, fighting not just for themselves, but for the good of all peoples, regardless of their own race. She’s always been told that the legends are all that’s left of the Wardens these days, though.

“He told us he was in the area looking for recruits,” Dezh says, as if guessing Kay’s thoughts. It’s actually very likely that she guessed; she knows Kay inside out, and vice versa. “There’s only a handful of Grey Wardens in Ferelden, and—well, he’ll tell you the rest himself, I suppose. He wanted to speak to you as soon as you woke up. He and Keeper Marethari both. Do you think you can stand?”

Kay doesn’t just think it—she _needs_ it. She’s never been very good at staying in bed and letting things happen to other people. If there’s a Grey Warden in their camp, she’s not going to let him leave before talking to him. Halfway through pulling on her breeches, however, she freezes. A horrible thought has crossed her mind, and she seeks her sister’s eyes again.

“Is Tamlen okay?”

There’s a beat of silence as Dezh struggles to answer. It’s information enough for Kay. She sinks back onto the bed and stares up at the sorrow on her sister’s face. They both know what the other is thinking. Kay wishes that she could go back to stop Tamlen; Dezh wishes that she would’ve gone with them. That, at least, is something Kay’s thankful for—that they did the untypical thing and split up, Dezh taking the right fork of the crossroads and Kay following Tamlen to the left. If all three of them had found the cave, how many of them would’ve made it out alive?

With an audible sniffle, Dezh looks away. “Just get dressed, alright?”

Kay slips into a tunic, ignoring the leather armor that’s been brushed and laid out on Dezh’s bed. She can stand and walk and talk, but her whole body is stiff from lying still and there’s a faint ache directly under her skin, like a distant hum that never quite leaves her consciousness. The weight of her armor would not do her any good right now.

Stepping outside is like stepping into one of those nightmares where you’re supposed to stand in front of a crowd and hold a speech, and you discover that you’re naked. As Kay emerges from the aravel, everyone turns to stare at her: at least thirty pairs of Dalish eyes, expressions ranging from worried to disapproving to relieved, and one pair of shem eyes, a little higher up than the rest.

The Grey Warden is standing by the Keeper’s aravel—a tall, muscular man in silver armor, sporting a dark beard and mustache. Beside him, Keeper Marethari appears small and slight and old, but they both obviously have power in their own way. Kay’s grateful to have her sister by her side.

“It’s good to see you awake, da’len,” the Keeper greets her, before turning to Dezh. “I know you are worried, too, but Duncan and I would like to speak to her alone.”

“We are alone,” Kay says. “She’s basically me. I mean, we’re twins. I’d tell her everything anyway.”

Dezh grins, as always when Kay acknowledges the bond between them. Which is often—Dezh grins a lot, come to think of it.

“I have no problem with it, Keeper,” the Grey Warden says in a deep, steady voice. “We need to speak urgently, and act quickly.”

The Keeper glances between Kay and Dezh, obviously arrives at the conclusion that trying to separate them would be more trouble than it’s worth, and nods. “Let’s speak inside my aravel, then.”

What follows is, beyond any doubt, the worst conversation of Kay’s life. She finds herself clutching Dezh’s sleeve at some point without any memory of extending a hand, and Dezh is pressing their shoulders together in a way that suggests she, too, isn’t entirely aware of herself. With widened eyes and drumming heartbeats, they listen to Duncan’s words, and their world slowly collapses in on itself.

The mirror that Kay and Tamlen found was tainted by darkspawn.

Kay is now tainted by darkspawn, and Tamlen is most likely dead.

Kay will most likely die.

Unless—

“The only thing that can save you,” Duncan says, his words slow and deliberate to make sure that Kay fully understands, “is my order. If you join the Grey Wardens, you will have a chance to live.”

“A chance?” Dezh’s voice squeaks out of nowhere, but her eyes are fixed on Duncan’s face, bright and intense. She’s no longer grinning. “Only a chance?”

“The only chance,” Duncan corrects gently. “Joining the Grey Wardens is not without danger, but everything else is—”

“Death,” Dezh finishes for him. She turns to look at Kay, and Kay looks back at her. Dezh’s face comes into focus, her anguish and her doubt and her fierce devotion to Kay’s life, and with it comes one thing to replace the numbness in Kay’s limbs—determination.

They’re Dalish. They’ve survived everything the universe has thrown at them, from slavery to shem armies to exile, and they will continue to survive.

“I’m not offering this out of pity,” Duncan says, taking Kay’s silence for doubt or resistance. “I wouldn’t ask you to join the Grey Wardens if I didn’t think you’d make an excellent addition to our order. The Keeper tells me you’re a skilled fighter and poison-maker. We have need of such skills.” He hesitates, then adds, “There are darkspawn massing in the Korcari Wilds. I didn’t want to tell you this and spread panic, but I fear we may be dealing with a new Blight.”

“Well, that’s settled then,” Dezh says, although she still sounds like there’s something pressing on her vocal chords. “You need recruits and Kay needs a cure. We’ll come with you.”

“ _We_?” Keeper Marethari, who has kept herself out of the conversation until now, arches an eyebrow and leans forward. “I do not recall Duncan extending the offer to you, da’len.”

“He doesn’t have to,” Dezh says. She lifts her chin, but Kay can feel her trembling where their shoulders touch. “If he thinks I’m letting him take away my twin to war and potential death, he can think again. Where my twin goes, I go.”

Her voice almost breaks on the last word, and that’s when Kay’s voice wakes up. Her sister has supported her through this conversation; now she has to support her sister.

“Dezh is right,” she says, sitting up straight. “I’m not going anywhere without her. Besides, she’s an archer and trap-maker and master strategist. You need her skills, too.”

Duncan gives her a long, thoughtful look, and for a moment Kay fears that they’ve overstepped their boundaries. Are they allowed to speak to Grey Wardens this way? She inches a little closer to her sister on the wooden bench, drawing strength from everything that feels like home, and then Duncan smiles.

“So be it. You’ll be the first Dalish recruits in a long time, but that doesn’t make you any less welcome. I’m honored to accept you both.”

The collapse of their world is complete, but at least they’ve found a way to climb out of the ruins now. As long as the Mahariel twins are together, Kay knows, they will always find a way.

 

* * *

 

Daveth lies dead at their feet, his eyes rolled back in his head. Jory’s blood-stained body is slumped against a crumbled pillar. Alistair watches with anxious amber eyes, expression pained, stance rigid. Duncan’s face is a mask of solemnity as he offers Kay the Joining Chalice.

She accepts it with one hand. The other hand is linked with Dezh’s, their fingers woven together, palms touching. She takes a sip, keeping it in her mouth, and passes the Chalice to her sister. The substance burns on her tongue, but she waits. Her eyes lock on Dezh’s face, and her twin gives her the tiniest of nods.

They swallow the blood together.

They awake as Wardens together.


End file.
